Redstate

By Charles Bird Posted in Spotlight Blogs | War — Comments (14) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

All too often we see Democrats support anti-democratic proposals and go to un-democratic lengths to see them through. It happened the last time they were in power, so it stands to reason it would happen again. Dennis Kucinich is but the latest example, supporting the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, which is hardly fair and should be unconstitutional.

Read on . . .

Over the weekend, the National Conference for Media Reform was held in Memphis, TN, with a number of notable speakers on hand for the event. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) made an surprise appearance at the convention to announce that he would be heading up a new House subcommittee which will focus on issues surrounding the Federal Communications Commission.

The Presidential candidate said that the committee would be holding "hearings to push media reform right at the center of Washington.” The Domestic Policy Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee was to be officially announced this week in Washington, D.C., but Kucinich opted to make the news public early.

In addition to media ownership, the committee is expected to focus its attention on issues such as net neutrality and major telecommunications mergers. Also in consideration is the "Fairness Doctrine," which required broadcasters to present controversial topics in a fair and honest manner. It was enforced until it was eliminated in 1987.

Kucinich said in his speech that "We know the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda" and added "we are now in a position to move a progressive agenda to where it is visible."

It's apparent that Kucinich's agenda, shared by many of his liberal and socialist friends, is to censor free speech by shredding AM talk radio, which happens to be the only media with a conservative majority. How convenient. Back in the pre-Limbaugh 1980s, broadcasters were required to present opinions in a "fair and honest manner", meaning that if someone aired an opinion, the station had to find someone to give a counter-point ("Jane, you ignorant slut!").

Because these regulations proved burdensome, AM radio basically stuck to news and tinny-sounding music. Democrats loved this muzzle on free speech, and many would love nothing better than to go back to those good ol' days. If reinstated, talk radio would change overnight, and it would empower liberal groups like Media Matters. Today all they can do is complain. But with the "Fairness" Doctrine, they could take their case to the U.S. government and try to change station content with the backing of federal police power. Radio stations would have to hire lawyers to defend their shows, cutting into profits, and the Left wins by making the process too aggravating.

Dennis Kucinich is showing that--by supporting the "Fairness" Doctrine--he's all for free speech, except when he disagress with it. His new role at the head of the new House subcommittee was no mistake. He's going to try to take down talk radio.

Oh, and about that conference, the National Conference for Media Reform. According to Cliff Kincaid:

Sponsored by Free Press, a Massachusetts-based organization that is generously subsidized by pro-Democratic Party billionaire George Soros, the "National Conference on Media Reform" featured Bill Moyers and Jesse Jackson and Hollywood celebrities such as Danny Glover, Geena Davis and Jane Fonda.

Soros, portrayed by the major media and "progressives" funded by him as a humanitarian and philanthropist, has made billions of dollars through international financial manipulations conducted through secretive off-shore hedge funds. He was convicted of insider trading in France, one of many countries to have borne the brunt of his global financial schemes.

He spent over $26 million in the 2004 presidential campaign trying to defeat Bush and also contributed to groups that have brought Democrats to power in Congress.

His "media reform" agenda is being pursued primarily though Free Press, which has received at least $400,000 over the last several years from the Soros-funded Open Society Institute. But Soros has also poured money into groups like the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Fund for Investigative Journalism, and Investigative Reporters & Editors.

[...]

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), which opposes the Chinese communist government as too capitalist, was one of the official exhibitors. Also on hand, displaying banners calling for the impeachment of President Bush, was the so-called 9/11 truth movement, which holds that Muslims were blamed for the 2001 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon when U.S. officials actually carried them out.

Other exhibitors included the Newspaper Guild, Consumers Union, Mother Jones magazine, Pacifica Radio, and Amy Goodman, host of "Democracy Now."

While the Democratic Party and its political leaders were embraced by most of the participants and usually met with standing ovations, the official conference bookstore didn't offer any books by or about Hillary Clinton. I was told by the bookstore owner that that she was perceived as too conservative by this crowd and that those books wouldn't sell.

On the other hand, books by Senator Barack Obama and Al Gore were prominently featured. Books by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Mikhail Gorbachev, former White House reporter Helen Thomas, and Webster Tarpley, a former associate of Lyndon LaRouche, were also available. Tarpley, an "expert" on how 9/11 was a U.S. plot, was a featured guest for two hours on Air America, the liberal radio network now in bankruptcy because of bad management and dismal ratings.

A special screening of the film "Reel Bad Arabs" was held, in order to argue that Arabs and Muslims deserve more favorable coverage from the media and Hollywood. The film is narrated by Jack Shaheen, who recently appeared on Al-Jazeera English making charges of anti-Arab media bias.

Very little was said during various panels about the Islamic terrorists who killed almost 3,000 Americans on 9/11 and are currently killing American soldiers and innocent civilians, most of them Muslims, in Iraq. Instead, Bush was blamed for the violence there.

Showing where conference participants stood on the matter of maintaining a U.S. military to defend America against the global Jihad, one of the books on sale at the official conference bookstore was titled, 10 Excellent Reasons Not To Join The Military.

Former conservative David Brock, of another Soros-funded group, Media Matters, labeled the Bush foreign policy of liberating Arab lands as "criminally insane." On the same panel with Brock, Norman Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy suggested that U.S. foreign policy was immoral and that the media were working hand-in-glove with the Bush Administration to prepare a military attack on Iran, just as they had done with Iraq.

Reaching new levels of hysteria, Rep. Maurice Hinchey said the survival of America was itself at stake because "neo-fascist" and "neo-con" talk-show hosts led by Rush Limbaugh had facilitated the "illegal" war in Iraq and were complicit in President Bush's repeated violations of the Constitution, such as by detaining terrorists. He warned that the "right-wing oriented media" were now preparing the way for Bush to wage war on Iran and Syria.

His answer, a bill titled the "Media Ownership Reform Act," would reinstate the federal fairness doctrine and authorize bureaucrats at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to monitor and alter the content of radio and television programs.

Hinchey, chairman of the "Future of American Media Caucus" in the House, was introduced as the new chairman of a subcommittee with jurisdiction over the FCC. For Hinchey and the vast majority at the conference, there was a pressing need for more, not less, regulation of what they call the "corporate media."

With passage of his bill, Hinchey said that "progressives" would be able to demand and get "equal access" to programs hosted by conservatives and rebut the "baloney" of people like Limbaugh. "All of that stuff will end," Hinchey said about the influence of conservative media. By name, he also denounced Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting.

Hinchey praised Democratic FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, who appeared at the conference, and indicated that with the election of a Democratic President in 2008, the FCC could be openly used to frustrate the growing popularity of conservative ideas, perhaps under the cover of resisting "media consolidation."

Later, Hinchey was seen preparing for an appearance on Air America, which had a make-shift studio set up on the premises of the conference.

Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen, who was just elected to Congress from Memphis, assured the audience that Democrats would protect and possibly increase funding for public broadcasting, which he noted is on the "left hand side of the dial" but has been having problems generating listeners and viewers.

One of the cries of some participants was to "put the public back into public broadcasting," apparently a plea for even more "public" money from Congress.

Public broadcasting's Bill Moyers, who spoke to the conference about the "ravenous" nature of "Big Media," was obviously not referring to public TV or radio's appetite for U.S. tax dollars, even though AIM has documented how these entities have received over $8 billion from the taxpayers since their creation. The far-left Pacifica Radio, another taxpayer-supported network, had a heavy presence at the "media reform" conference.

Kincaid has plenty more on this liberal-socialist lovefest. Soros is also a benefactor of Media Matters. Like with Kucinich, Soros would like nothing better than an Open Society, except when it extends to free speech that he doesn't like. It's one thing when these fringe elements like Kucinich, Sanders, Hinchey and others are on the sidelines and in the minority. But now they have power, and it looks like they can't wait to use it.